Large-scale industrialization began in 1954 with the arrival of a General Motorsassembly plant. Automotive and aerospace development gave the city one of the nation's greatest population growth rates between 1950 and 1990. Arlington became one of the "boomburbs", the extremely fast-growing suburbs of the post-World War II era. U.S. Census Bureau population figures for the city tell the story: 7,692 (1950), 90,229 (1970), 261,721 (1990), 365,438 (2010)[13] and almost 374,000 by 2011.[9]Tom Vandergriff served as mayor from 1951 to 1977 during this period of robust economic development. Six Flags Over Texas opened in Arlington in 1961. In 1972 the Washington Senators baseball team relocated to Arlington and began play as the Texas Rangers and in 2009 the Dallas Cowboys also began to play at the newly constructed Cowboys Stadium, now AT&T Stadium.

In October 2019, Arlington was chosen out of several major U.S. cities to become the permanent home of the $150 million National Medal of Honor Museum. Construction of the museum is set to be completed in 2024.[14][15]

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, Arlington has a total area of 99.7 square miles (258 km2); 96.5 square miles (250 km2) of it was land, and 3.2 square miles (8.3 km2) of it is water. The city lies approximately 12 miles (19 km) east of downtownFort Worth and 20 miles (32 km) west of downtownDallas.

2012 Tornado

During the April 3, 2012 tornado outbreak a severe thunderstorm produced an EF-2 tornado in Eastern Kennedale which moved North East across 287 near Stagetrail Drive and continued in a North North-Eastern direction. The tornado contained winds up to 135 MPH and damaged over 200 homes and businesses, including severe damage suffered by the Green Oaks Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, and injured seven people before the tornado lifted on the shores of Lake Arlington.[19][20]

At the census of 2010, there were 365,438 people, 133,072 households, and 90,099 families residing in the city. The population density was 3,811 people per square mile (1,472/km²). There were 144,805 housing units at an average density of 1,510 per square mile (5,833/km²).[22] The 2011 estimated racial makeup of the city (based on the 2010 census) was 59% White, 18.8% Black or African American, 6.8% Asian, 0.7% Native American, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 11.3% from other races, and 3.3% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 27.4% of the population.[23]

There were 133,072 households out of which 40% had children under the age of 18 living in them, 48% were married couples living together, 15% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32% were non-families. 25% of all households were made up of individuals and 5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.7 and the average family size was 3.3.[24]

In the city, the 2010 population was spread out with 31% under the age of 20, 8% from 20 to 24, 30% from 25 to 44, 23% from 45 to 64, and 8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 32 years. For every 100 females, there were 104 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 94 males 18 and over.[25]

The median income for a household in the city was estimated to be $50,655 in 2011. Individual males working full-time year-round had a median income of $41,059 versus $35,265 for females.[26] The per capita income for the city was $25,317.[22]

About 16% of Arlington families in general and 31% of female-headed families with no husband present were living below the poverty line. 20% of the Arlington population as a whole, including 28% of individuals under age 18 and 8% of those age 65 or over were living in poverty.[26]

43% of Arlington renters and 28% of homeowners were paying 35% or more of their household income for housing costs in 2011.[27]

With the relocation of the U.S. Bowling Congress, and the Bowling Proprietors Association of America and the International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame, Arlington became the world headquarters for bowling.[28] The International Bowling Museum and International Bowling Hall of Fame are located on the International Bowling Campus in Arlington.

For retail shopping, Arlington is home to the Parks Mall at Arlington, which houses numerous stores, eateries, an ice skating rink, and a movie theatre. In addition, the Arlington Highlands was completed in mid-2007, serving as a shopping and entertainment hotspot with places such as Bar Louie, BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse, Chuy's, Dave & Buster's, Improv Comedy Club, Piranha Killer Ramen, Pluckers Wing Bar, Studio Movie Grill, and World Market, among others. The Arlington Highlands is located on I-20 at Matlock Rd. The Lincoln Square located near the AT&T Stadium also houses several stores, restaurants, and a Studio Movie Grill.[29]

Arlington is also home to Theatre Arlington, one of the largest community theatres in the nation, which produces quality live theatre year-round and offers theater classes for all ages. The Mainstage Theatre at UT Arlington is another well-known venue for live theatre in Arlington.

The Arlington Museum of Art in downtown and the Gallery at UT Arlington are the city's designated art venues. The Art Museum is currently host to a public art project called "The Star of Texas" to promote Arlington's newest slogan of being the "American Dream City". Twenty community artists were chosen to paint a large star sculpture with a unique interpretation of what it means to live the American dream in Arlington. From 2016 until 2019, these stars are available to discover all over Arlington. From the TCC campuses to the Arlington Highlands shopping center, to all over downtown and other various locations, every star will lead visitors to a significant location in the city.[30] In 2014, a community mural was created along the wall of Park Plaza Shopping Center, an east Arlington location that was the target of graffiti tagging for a long time.[31]

The Planetarium Dome Theater at UT Arlington is one of the largest in Texas.[32]

Levitt Pavilion Arlington opened in 2009 and offers 50 free concerts per year in downtown Arlington featuring a diverse range of music genres. Notable performers have included Asleep at the Wheel, the Band of Heathens, the Killdares, Pentatonix, the Polyphonic Spree, the Quebe Sisters, and Ray Wylie Hubbard. The Texas Hall and AT&T Stadium are also destinations for live concerts in Arlington.

On July 4, the all-volunteer non-profit Arlington Fourth of July Parade Association puts on the annual parade through Downtown Arlington and UT Arlington's College Park District, featuring floats and entries from local schools, businesses, and organizations. The parade is broadcast on local radio stations as well as on the AISD TV station and website. The parade began in 1965 as decorated bicycles ridden through Randol Mill Park organized by citizen Dottie Lynn and Church Women United. It has grown to around 75,000 spectators a year enjoying the festivities.[33]

Texas Live! is a $250 million mixed-use district featuring dining, entertainment, and a 302-room hotel with a convention center.[34] The new 200,000-square-foot district is located immediately outside the new Globe Life Field. Texas Live! opened in August 2018.[35][36]

Arlington Convention & Visitors Bureau

The Arlington Convention & Visitors Bureau is the official tourism identity for the city of Arlington, Texas. The Arlington Convention & Visitors Bureau (ACVB) is tasked with pursuing conventions, meetings, tour groups, reunions, and individual leisure travelers to increase city revenues from sale and lodging taxes. The Arlington CVB also supports local stakeholders that pursue high-profile special events and sporting events to fill hotels, Arlington Convention Center, AT&T Stadium, College Park Center, Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, and other venues around the city.

College sports

UTA was a founding member of the Southland Conference in 1963 and participated in the league until the end of the 2011-12 athletic year. They joined the Western Athletic Conference for one year before moving to the Sun Belt Conference.

A new arena called the College Park Center is now the host facility for basketball and volleyball home games as well as other university activities. The arena opened February 1, 2012 and seats approximately 7,000 people. Baseball home games are held at the Clay Gould Ballpark and softball home games are at the Allan Saxe Field; both facilities completed $5.5 million in upgrade cost in early 2015.[41]

The Mavericks' team name selection was made in 1971, predating the National Basketball Association's expansion franchise Dallas Mavericks' starting choice in 1980.

Arlington High and Bowie High School play football home games at UT Arlington's Maverick Stadium. Cravens Field, on the campus of Lamar but funded by Martin High School, and Wilemon Field, on the campus of Sam Houston, are home to the other four teams in the city.

Mansfield Timberview High School's boys basketball 2017 5A state title is the city's most recent boys basketball state title victory.[42] Bowie High School's 2005 girls basketball 5A state title is the city's most recent girls state title victory.[43]

Government

Local

Arlington City Council Chamber

The Arlington City Council has been presided over by Mayor Jeff Williams since May 2015, following the 12-year incumbency of Mayor Robert Cluck.[44] The Arlington City Council is composed of the Mayor and eight City Council members.[45] Elections are conducted every spring in May. Even though City Officials are officially elected Non-Partisan, it is known they are Republicans based on voting in the Republican Primary every 2 years. The Mayor/Council Members are subject to a combined maximum of 3 terms.[46]

City Council Members as of February 2019

District 1: Helen Moise[47] first elected May 2018; term ends May 2020

District 2: Sheri Capehart[47] *first elected May 2000; term ends May 2020, legally not eligible to run again

District 3: Marvin Sutton[47] first elected May 2019; term ends May 2021

District 4: Andrew Piel[47] first elected May 2019; term ends May 2021

District 5: Ignacio Nunez[47] first elected June 2019; term ends May 2021

District 6: Robert Shepard (Represents the whole city)[47] *first elected May 2008; term ends May 2020, legally not eligible to run again*

District 7: Victoria Farrar-Myers (Represents the whole city)[47] first elected May 2016; term ends May 2020

District 8: Barbara Odom-Wesley (Represents the whole city)[47] first elected May 2019; term ends May 2021

According to Arlington's Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for the fiscal year ended in September 2016, the city's various funds had $553.8 million in revenues, $479.0 million in expenditures, $2.925 billion in total assets, $1.024 billion in total liabilities, and $382.5 million in cash in investments.[48]

Fire protection is provided by the Arlington Fire Department, and emergency medical services are provided by American Medical Response, which also provides medical support to AT&T Stadium.

The city of Arlington is a voluntary member of the North Central Texas Council of Governments association, the purpose of which is to coordinate individual and collective local governments and facilitate regional solutions, eliminate unnecessary duplication, and enable joint decisions.

Federal representation

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service maintains the Arlington Ecological Services Field Office (ARLES) on Northeast Green Oaks Boulevard in far northeastern Arlington; while it is one of the oldest Ecological Services Field Stations in the United States, today its activities are focused primarily on the illegal trafficking in exotic species through Dallas/Fort-Worth International Airport. The office is not staffed or funded for nor active on the protection and enhancement of local urban-area endangered species habitat, nor on the enforcement of the related provisions of the Endangered Species Act.[50]

Kaplan College, along with a branch of University of Phoenix is located in Arlington as well. The flagship campus of Ogle School (a cosmetology school) is located in Arlington.

Primary and secondary schools

Arlington's residents live in five independent school districts (or ISDs): Arlington ISD, Mansfield ISD, Grand Prairie ISD, Hurst-Euless-Bedford ISD, and Kennedale ISD. In Texas, school district boundaries do not always follow city and county boundaries because all aspects of school district government apparatus, including district boundaries, are separated from city and county governments. Not all city of Arlington residents are in the AISD, and not all AISD students are residents of Arlington. There are currently ten AISD high schools.[62]

Arlington has dozens of private and public charter schools not affiliated with any ISDs.[63][64]

Economy

Top employers

According to Arlingon's 2018 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR),[65] the top employers in the city are:

Transportation

On February 16, 2006, I-20 in Arlington was dedicated as 'Ronald Reagan Memorial Highway' (signs are visible at mile markers 447 and 452)

On July 2, 1902 the first Dallas/Fort-Worth "Interurban" electric trolley came to Arlington; this popular service ran between those three cities and points in between until Christmas Eve, 1934, providing easy transportation for both business and pleasure. The track ran through Arlington along what is now Abram Street.

For many years, Arlington had the notorious distinction of being the largest city in the United States that was not served by a public transportation system.[68] Between 1980 and 2013, voters rejected three separate ballot proposals to bring public transportation to the city, though certain political and economic realities particular to North Texas made successful passage of those measures arguably more difficult in Arlington than in other parts of the state or country.[68][69] On August 19, 2013, the two-year pilot project known as the Metro Arlington Xpress (MAX) bus began offering weekday bus service between College Park Center (on the campus of The University of Texas at Arlington) and the Trinity Railway Express (TRE) CentrePort Station near DFW Airport, with a single stop near the Arlington Entertainment District. From the TRE station, riders could take the TRE to Fort Worth, Dallas and points in between, all of which are served by comprehensive public transit systems.[70] The MAX program was funded primarily by the City of Arlington and The University of Texas at Arlington, with contributions from local businesses.[71] The service was run through a tri-party agreement between the City of Arlington, the Fort Worth Transportation Authority and the Dallas Area Rapid Transit. City Council extended the MAX bus service beyond the original two-year pilot timeframe through annual contracts until Dec. 31, 2017. The MAX was officially shut down on December 29, 2017, a few weeks after Via debuted in Arlington.[72] The City of Arlington has a lower than average percentage of households without a car. In 2015, just 4.7 percent of Arlington households lacked a car, which dropped to 3.7 percent in 2016. The national average is 8.7 percent in 2016. Arlington averaged 1.89 cars per household in 2016, compared to a national average of 1.8.[73]

In January 2017, Arlington was part of a Texas state-wide designation as an Automated Vehicle Proving Ground by the U.S. Department of Transportation.[74] In August 2017, Arlington launched the first autonomous vehicle shuttle service in the United States offered by a municipal government to the general public on a continuous basis.[75] Named Milo, the autonomous electric shuttles provide service during major events at Globe Life Park and AT&T Stadium, connecting remote parking areas to the stadiums.

Arlington also offers an on-demand rideshare service, in partnership with the company Via, which began in December 2017.[76] Riders can request a pickup from a six-passenger van within a designated service area, which covers key destinations within Arlington as well as connecting to the Trinity Railway Express CentrePort Station.

Additionally, Arlington has four transit services targeting individual demographic groups: "Handitran" serves senior citizens and the disabled; Arlington hotels pay for a tourist-oriented shuttle-bus system for their guests; The University of Texas at Arlington runs a limited shuttle service for college students; and lastly Mission Arlington, an Arlington-run charity serving the severely indigent, has a bus service that circulates people needing social services or transportation to employment.

The city is served by two Interstate Highways, I-20, also known as Ronald Reagan Memorial Highway, and I-30, also named Tom Landry Memorial Highway. Other limited-access freeways include State Highway 360, which is named for the founder of Six Flags Over Texas, Angus G. Wynne, running along the eastern border, and U.S. Highway 287, which traverses the southwestern portion of the city. In most cases, the memorial names are not used in reference to these roadways.
The city also has a tollway, The 360 Tollway, which connects Mansfield to Arlington and Grand Prairie. The tollway is also known as the Rosa Parks Memorial Parkway, named after the civil rights activist. Near US-287, where the tollway ends, the tollway is also named "Senator Chris Harris Memorial Highway" after the local legislator who aided the extension.

The Union Pacific Railroad now owns and operates the original Texas and Pacific (later Missouri Pacific) transcontinental right-of-way and rail route though Arlington (parallel to which the Interurban originally ran); it offers no passenger stops in Arlington, its Arlington freight service is primarily to the local General Motors assembly plant, and most of its lengthy and numerous freight trains are merely passing through town to and from points far away.[77][78]